Grant program for Black women business owners is discriminatory, appeals court rules

FILE – Co-founders and CEOs of The Fearless Fund Arian Simone, center left, and Ayana Parsons, center right, speak to journalists outside federal court in Miami, on Jan. 31, 2024. A U.S. federal court of appeals panel suspended the venture capital firm’s grant program for Black women business owners, ruling that a conservative group is likely to prevail in its lawsuit claiming that the program is the discriminatory. NEW YORK — A U.S.

“The message these judges sent today is that diversity in Corporate America, education, or anywhere else should not exist,” she said in statement. “These judges bought what a small group of white men were selling.” In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Miami found that Blum was likely to prevail in his lawsuit claiming the grant program violates, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race when enforcing contracts. The Reconstruction-era law was originally intended to protect formally enslaved people from economic exclusion, but anti-affirmative action activists have been leveraging it to challenge programs intended to benefit minority-owned businesses.

Judge Robin Rosenbaum, an Obama appointee, disagreed in a blistering dissent, likening the plaintiffs’ claims of harm to soccer players trying to win by “flopping on the field, faking an injury.” Rosenbaum said none of the plaintiffs demonstrated that they had any real intention to apply for the grants in what she called “cookie-cutter declarations” that were ”threadbare and devoid of substance.”

The Strivers Grant Fund is one of several programs run by the foundation arm of the Fearless Fund, which was founded to address the wide racial disparity in funding for businesses owned by women of color. Less than 1% of venture capital funding goes to businesses owned by Black and Hispanic women, according to the nonprofit advocacy group digitalundivided.

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